Saturday, March 03, 2012

Pollution Bubble

One of the odder days I've experienced recently if not for a long time. Schools were out for a Inservice/PD, and in my wisdom I had the necessary hours this year to not have to attend something painful on an off-day. It's been supercrazy lately with school, the start of the tennis season and typical home stuff, so I went in for 2 hours in the morning anyway to catch up, and catch up I did.
The forecasts had been for a round of morning storms to come through, to be followed by bad stuff in the afternoon. The morning rains centered around my time at work- didn't want to ride in it- but then tapered off by the time I finished. Once home at 11.00 I had a nice window and took advantage to get some miles. Very strangely, when I got home it was in the-50s, so I wore tights and a jacket. By the time I got the bike out and ready the temps had raised 10F, which to me was ominous; the forecasts said that the severity of the weather would correspond with how big a rise in temps we experienced. And the sun was peeking out. Ack!

As you can see from the route, it was a pretty standard local ride. I made good time in my first hour, certainly helped by the prevailing winds and by a willingness to ride tempo. At around mile 20 coming out of Mockingbird Valley I sort of hit the wall. Bonk! From there I made my way over the Cherokee, and the mixture of bonk and wind was for a slower and slower return. But that was alright. It was a great to get out on an off day!

Then things got interesting. By the time I got home around 2.00, the weather people had already come on looking at storms coming into the area, ones that had already dropped tennis ball-sized hail in Evansville! The radar actually showed T-storms just north of town, so I got home exactly when I needed to. Instead of showering, I changed and basically settled in to watch 2 hours of storm coverage. Many of the towns destroyed or affected are just north of Louisville: Otisco, Maryville, and Henryville. FatGuy used to live in that area in Charlestown and we have ridden numerous rides in and around that section of southern IN. As is very, very often the case, the river and our "pollution island/bubble" (my theory) pushed storms north, in turn beating Indiana down. I added one pic below, but obviously you can google for yourself. Pekin, Borden and Milton KY were other town affected. There were still more in central KY. I would encourage you to google videos of the event too. With our modern conveniences at hand, there are some crazy videos of these tornadoes. And at the end of the line another potential tornado and heavy hail went just south of us, through an area- Pioneer Village- that experienced a twister in '96. Pollution Island to the rescue.

Peace to all the families who are grieving loss and are cleaning up their lives after experiencing Mother Nature's fury. Humbling it is. We go around once, and you just never know.